In early August, CATEC once again attended the MRS (Multi-robot Systems) Summer School at the Czech Technical University (CTU) of Prague. There, our colleagues Irene Espigado Delgado and Alexandre Rodríguez Rendo enjoyed an intense week of learning and networking, sharing interesting conversations with other aerial robotics researchers.

In total about 200 people have participated in the campus, more or less, most of them young researchers, PhD and professors from different countries. Each day they have attended 3-4 presentations by experts in the field of multi-robot systems. Some were more theoretical and others more practical, but always commenting on recent achievements or exposing the research lines of the speaker in question (the program can be consulted at https://mrs.fel.cvut.cz/summer-school-2024/).

There was also a practical workshop given by members of the MRS group, in order to develop and show in more depth a specific topic of their system, and to resolve doubts first hand with the students.

“Finally, we were divided into groups of 4 or 5 people (randomly) to carry out a challenge,” explains Irene Espigado, engineer of the Perception & AI Unit. “It consisted of solving a simulation project that we had to finish during the week, in order to test it on real UAVs on the last day of the event. We were given a solution that already worked and had to be improved, and tasks arose such as improving the trajectory planner, improving the assignment of points to each UAV, evaluating different trajectory generators, etc.”, explains the young woman.

“It has been a very intense week full of activities,” adds Espigado. “It’s an experience that many people at CATEC could enjoy, especially doctoral students or people from units such as Autonomous Systems or Robotics, since the presentations are focused on control techniques and multi-robot systems. Even so, the theoretical part has not been the center of the event. What I enjoyed the most was the challenge, both the resolution. It was very enjoyable, as well as the final competition.

Our congratulations to the whole organizing team. We leave you some pictures of the experience and… See you next year!